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Was listening to Cor-crane Secret this morning and it just struck me how much i love Polvo, their records just keep throwing you curveballs.
Great tones too i think Ash Bowie used a HM-2 which further convinces me i need one.
The cover art to the reissue is probably one of my favourite album covers.

I’m a fan too. The first time I heard Today’s Active Lifestyles I thought something was broken.

Kind of the Thelonious Monk of guitar rock.

celebrate the new dark age is my favorite polvo album. i have the version of the vinyl where the packaging is like an old school chocolate package.

you've probably heard it if you're a polvo fan but check out the peel sessions.

p.s. tragic carpet ride is my favorite song by polvo.

marqueemoon wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 06, 2020 5:43 am

I’m a fan too. The first time I heard Today’s Active Lifestyles I thought something was broken.

Kind of the Thelonious Monk of guitar rock.

+1 for this album and sentiment! Today's Active Lifestyles is my fav Polvo, hands down. I love Exploded Drawing too. I don't know why but at the time I really didn't like Shapes. I should probably revisit it. The reunion LPs have been fantastic. Great fucking band.

Yes great band, it's funny, I listened to four of their albums last weekend. Sounds so good and not at all outdated (correct ? I'm not sure of the word...)
And what about Guv'ner?!! One of my favourite bands of all times.

Cor-crane Secret really is a great album. I often forget about Polvo. When I do remember though, I end up listening to nothing else for a week straight.

Polvo are one of my all time favourite bands. I love the guitar styles, and how they use open tunings and eastern style lead lines to great effect.

I think they're done making records after their last one, but who knows? They came back before, they could do another one.

Three of my favorite tracks by them, which I would recommend to newcomers, are Vibracobra, Tragic Carpet Ride, and Fast Canoe.

They have a slight Sonic Youth vibe to some of their tracks, but they are far from being derivative, and their noisy sections don't go
go on for five minutes, like SY liked to.

Vibracobra is one of the most beautiful tracks. The way the guitars weave around each other, and the dark harmonics.

Really hope to hear more from them, or at least Ash, in the future.

P.S. The newest METZ album has some very good SY/Polvo sounding sections in some of the tracks.
They're definitely taking a less noisy approach this time, compared to usual METZ, which is very very noisy.

One of my favorite bands! They're a reminder that what you play is far more important than the gear used to play it. In 2009, I got into In Prism, their comeback record. I loved it. And that made me explore their entire discography, including several side projects. I particularly like Black Taj, one of Dave Brylawski's side projects.

I saw them play during the In Prism tour, and I was so close and headbanged so hard that I hit my forehead on the stage and got a bruise. At the end, I found Ash Bowie, gave him a hug and told him how much I loved the show.

SadFuzz wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:44 am

Great tones too i think Ash Bowie used a HM-2 which further convinces me i need one.

He might have used one back in the nineties. But in 2009 (or 2010), according to this blog, Ash was using a Boss Octave, a MXR Distortion III and some Carl Martin pedals (Boost Kick/Heavy Drive).

I can confirm the Carl Martin pedals and the Boss Octave, I remember seeing them.

I like Polvo very much and hearing them always makes me happy.

Had the good fortune of seeing them open for Pavement back in the day. At the time they didn't really stand out to me, because I was so into Pavement, but in retrospect they really carved out their own path and did some really interesting stuff.

I saw them open for Pavement as well, at Mabel's in Champaign, IL.

Also saw them open for Pavement. Pavement was pretty dull by comparison.

One of my favorite bands ever. The Today's Active Lifestyles and Cor-Crane Secret reissues this year were top notch. I recently acquired an early Yamaha Hundred 212 like Ash used on all the pre- Exploded Drawing stuff.

Anybody have any idea on how Ash gets that raspy harmonic clang sound all over TAL? I think it's the Galanti Grand Prix he had and a DOD Classic Fuzz, but curious if anybody has used any other pedals or gear and gotten close to that era of tone.

From live stuff i've seen back then a strat copy was used a bunch. Read somewhere pedals were the DOD and a HM-2. They used lots of alternate tunings too. Maybe a VB-2 as well for some songs?